President Donald Trump walks in Lafayette Park to visit outside St. John's Church across from the White House Monday, June 1, 2020, in Washington. Part of the church was set on fire during protests on Sunday night.
Fact-checking Trump's claims on tear gas used against protesters
04:47 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

A major in the DC National Guard on Tuesday told a congressional committee that tear gas was in fact used when federal officers cleared a peaceful protest at Lafayette Square just before President Donald Trump’s visit to a nearby church last month.

“I could feel irritation in my eyes and nose, and based on my previous exposure to tear gas in my training at West Point and later in my Army training, I recognized that irritation as effects consistent with CS or ‘tear gas,’” Major Adam DeMarco testified before the House Natural Resources Committee. “And later that evening, I found spent tear gas canisters on the street nearby.”

DeMarco’s experience during the June 1 incident differs from the official account from federal officials.

US Park Police acting Chief Gregory Monahan testified Tuesday that tear gas was not used, but his testimony suggested that he defines tear gas as a particular type of gas called CS gas.

Monahan acknowledged the officers used other irritants and dispersal gases, including pepper balls, sting balls, and “smoke canisters which do not have an irritant in them.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses a broader definition than the Park Police for “riot control agents (sometimes referred to as ‘tear gas’).”

“Riot control agents are used by law enforcement officials for crowd control and by individuals and the general public for personal protection (for example, pepper spray),” the CDC says on its website.

In a statement on June 3, the Park Police said its officers “and other assisting law enforcement partners did not use tear gas or OC Skat Shells.”

The Park Police spokesman, Sgt. Eduardo Delgado, said in an interview with the website Vox that “it was a mistake” to deny the dispersants used were tear gas.

Tuesday, DeMarco said he “heard explosions and saw smoke being used to disperse the protestors.” He said he saw law enforcement “using ‘paintball-like’ weapons to discharge what I later learned to be ‘pepper balls’ into the crowd,” but did not say he saw law enforcement using the CS gas canisters.